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Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Hamas’s Main Man from Turkey to Tehran, by Jonathan Schanzer & Grant Rumley

Israel filed a complaint with NATO in late November over Turkey’s role in supporting terrorism in the
West Bank and Gaza.
Specifically, Israel called out Turkey for harboring and supporting known Hamas
officials. The complaint specifically mentions Salah al-Arouri, the head of
Hamas’ armed wing in the West Bank, who has lived in Turkey since 2010. Arouri
also claimed responsibility for this summer’s kidnapping
and murder of three Israeli teenagers, an abduction that helped spark this
summer’s war 50-day war in Gaza.It’s outrageous that a
known terrorist like Arouri can take refuge in a NATO member state. But it’s
also only part of the story. As recently as mid-November, Turkey has been home to one of
Hamas’s original leaders and most dangerous assets: Imad al-Alami. Not only was
Alami on the list of the original six Hamas officials designated terrorists by the U.S. government in 2003, he is also the point
man for all of Hamas’s relations with Iran and its proxies. He’s made
countless trips to Iran, a country that has provided Hamas with military
training and billions of dollars in financial and material aid. At the time of
his posting in Tehran, Iran was giving around $100 million a year to Hamas. Alami
has had a close and continuing working relationship with Hezbollah chief Hassan
Nasrallah for over 20 years. His ties are so close with the Tehran-aligned
“axis of resistance” that when Hamas decided to abandon its headquarters in
Damascus over disagreements with Tehran about the Syrian civil war, Alami was
the last to leave — in what appeared to be a last ditch effort to salvage the
relationship.The circumstances
surrounding Alami’s recent arrival in Turkey are still unclear. During this
summer’s Gaza war, he took part in the marathon cease-fire negotiations and reportedly gave voice to
the more militant elements of Hamas, which is not surprising given his with
close ties to Iran.
According to media reports, he arrived in Turkey a month after the war ended
for surgery on his right leg. Rumors swirled on blogs and forums that he was injured in an intra-Hamas
battle, although Hamas officials insisted that an Israeli air strike hobbled him.Nearly three months later,
Alami is still in Turkey, still receiving medical
attention, and still hosting prominent visitors. In early November, he met with
a Hamas delegation from the defunct Palestinian parliament, who gave him a
run-down of the violent events that have recently rocked Jerusalem.If Alami is still keeping
the lines of communication open with Tehran from his new base in Turkey, it
could very well mean that Ankara has taken on a new importance in the
procurement of Hamas weapons and the facilitation of other military activity. This
would not be terribly surprising in light of the fact that Hamas seems to be
operating rather openly in Turkey these days. For the last two years, Arouri
has been running West Bank operations from Turkish soil while the number of
Hamas operatives in Turkey
has swelled. In 2011, Israel released 10 Hamas operatives
as part of a prisoner exchange for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. These
operatives included Mahmoud Attoun and Taysir Suleiman, who both abducted
Israeli soldiers. They are now in Turkey, where they make the rounds on the Turkish speaking circuit, touting
their past “accomplishments.” There are at least nine other Hamas officials in Turkey
according to Palestinian news agencies.Alami, however, takes the
Hamas presence in Turkey to a whole new level. He was a founding father of the
terror group when it literally exploded on the scene in Gaza in the late 1980s.
He was promptly arrested by Israel and expelled to Lebanon in 1991. The
expulsion served as a turning point for Hamas. The leaders-in-exile learned
new tactics and strategies from Hezbollah, including the use of suicide
bombing. According to the Treasury Department’s investigation, Alami was
officially tasked in the 1990s as the Hamas member in
charge of “sending personnel and funding to the West Bank and Gaza.” In 2003, Alami’s body of
work as a senior Hamas leader earned him a terrorism designation by the U.S. Treasury alongside
other more household Hamas names, including Politburo chief Khaled Meshaal,
deputy political head Moussa Abu Marzouk, and founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.In 2008, Alami moved to Damascus, where he was officially put in charge of maintaining
Hamas’s ties with Iran
and its allies in Hezbollah and the Syrian regime. He was apparently good
enough at keeping these relationships strong that he was able to navigate the
complexities of the Syrian revolution when it first erupted in 2011. But by
2012, it was clear that the Hamas leadership could not stand by as its patrons
slaughtered Sunnis and Palestinian by the thousands, so the group’s leadership
moved to Qatar. Yet even then, Alami maintained good relations with the Iran
and its proxies. Nasrallah facilitated a meeting between Alami and Iranian
officials, in what appeared to be an attempt to keep the lines of communication
open during the fallout. And while ties were strained, weapons continued to flow from Iran
to Gaza during
this period.When it became clear that
even Alami could not salvage ties between Iran and Hamas, the journeyman Hamas
leader returned to Gaza and set about building a new political career. He
was elected deputy chief of the Hamas Politburo in
secret internal elections in 2012, and was later was named the head of the
Intifada Committee, an organization that presumably seeks to spark further
unrest against Israel.
Even in his new capacity, Alami maintained his close ties with Tehran. In early
2013, he went to Tehran
tomeet with then-Iranian Foreign Minister Ali
Akbar Salehi. And in the aftermath of the Gaza
war this summer, Hamas officials confirmed that Alami’s relations with
officials in Iran
are as strong as ever.All of this raises
questions about Alami’s current role in Turkey. It was troubling enough when
Arouri was running West Bank operations of Turkey with Ankara’s blessing. Now
that Alami has joined him, Turkey rivals Qatar as a top Hamas external
headquarters — and perhaps with Iran’s blessing. Alami’s presence in Turkey
could be a sign of heightened cooperation between Tehran and Ankara. The two
countries are undeniably foes when it comes to the future of Syria and other
issues in the Sunni-Shiite divide. But Iran
and Turkey have found ways
to look past their differences before: the two countries recently engaged in
massive sanctions-busting schemes, yielding Iran billions in gold and other illicit transactions. Alami’s presence in Turkey could
be a sign that Hamas is another joint venture.